Saturday, January 24, 2015

I haven't personally been subjected to
the
particular term
under discussion, but I am familiar with the all-too-common
ruse:

"See? Ban-gla-desh! It's a long word I have mastered,
so I must definitely know what I'm talking about!"

The
author is generous to call this rhetoric. It's more like an attempt to
intimidate others with a show of erudition. Often, the people who
do this don't really know what they're talking about; so for them, it's also an
attempt to hide ignorance by means of referring to something they hope
their listeners also don't know anything about.

In a day and
age when so many
people are
astoundingly ignorant about the economic and industrial
infrastructure on which their lives depend, Alex Epstein does a great
job of reminding us of this part of our Western heritage. I am only
half-joking when I say that the next time I have to engage an
environmentalist in conversation, I will have to resist the urge to
call him a baby killer. (I don't blame Epstein for this!)

The bonus lesson here? Another
part of the battle to win minds remains another kind of perspective:
Remembering to give others the benefit of the doubt as a starting
position. In the cases of economics and industry, it's not like our educational system has taught much of either to anyone for at least a couple of generations.

Snicker!

McSweeney's
Internet Tendency has been a rich vein of humor lately, as we see when Michael
Mayberry "mansplains"
"mansplaining":

That's why I think Mansplaining should be
called by its actual name, which is
didacticism.7
And news flash,
wimmin:8
a supposedly inclusive feminist often times becomes the didact in her
conversations with the
plebeian9
masses when she straightsplains to her gay friends about lesbian
rights, cisplains to her trans friends about the stigma associated
with transgendered identification, when she whitesplains to her black
friends about the oppressive administration, skinnysplains to her fat
friends about healthy eating, omnivoresplains to her vegan friends
about the evils of the factory farm industry, blogsplains to her print
journalist friends about the merits of indie-electro writing, or
humansplains to her cat that sometimes sex can be both pleasurable and
painful.10
[footnotes in original, minor format edits]